Midweek Mayhem!

Well, I am glad to be able to take some time to get back to my blog!

First off, as I said in an earlier post, Change is in the air here at the Armies of Chaos. I have begun my site upgrades, starting with the removal of the static entrance page. I am in the middle of developing a new theme for the site that I should have hosted in another few days.

I have several other projects in the works. Some more reviews of books, and a look into the darker side of the publishing world. Look for my upcoming blog, Winds of Controversy.

I will also be talking about extremism, healthcare, and runaway capitalism here in the coming weeks, so stay tuned.

I got a chance to look at the new HTC G3 My Touch yesterday. I was a bit skeptical about this phone having any chance of competing with the IPhone by Apple, as they seem to be dominating that portion of the cell phone market. What I found after spending about thirty minutes using it was that it was a very similar experience to the Iphone.

The touch interface was smooth, and easy to navigate even with my thick fingers. It’s video quality and built in speaker was on par with any device that size. That is to say that the images were crisp (even when playing YouTube videos) and the sound wasn’t any worse that listening to a transistor radio. Ear phones seem like they would be a must with this or the Iphone.

The browsing experience was pleasant, but not as fluid as the Iphone, which seems to be better at displaying a standard size site on the small screen. When viewing my ArmiesofChaos.com address on an Iphone, it shrinks it down to fit the screen, but the My Touch left it full size, wanting me to scroll around with my finger to find the content.

The hardware has a sleek and pleasing design, coming in the 3 colors pictured here. T-Mobile, who is the only carrier that has this, has done a good job of hitting a palatable price point for this new toy. It was listed here in Georgia at $199.00 with a 2 year contract. Like the IPhone and Blackberry, it does require a $40.00 per month data plan.

An innovation that T-Mobile is testing here in Georgia is offering to roll the cost of the phone into the monthly bill, something that you cannot currently get with the IPhone. They are actually offering it with the majority of their phones as a means to make it more attractive to get into the higher end phones, and to keep sales propped up in this tight economy.

I am considering dumping my current Sprint plan and moving to T-Mobile and the My Touch, but need to do some research first. I would love the opportunity to test one out over a couple of months of real use. If you want to find out more, follow this link.

I need to give a shout out to a friend of mine, David James, who is working hard on setting up an online store called Beyond the Charts (www.beyondthecharts.com). Beyond The Charts will feature novels and movies in the fantasy, sci-fi, horror, alternate history genres, To name a few. David also plans on having harder edge, hard to find music like prog rock, goth and industrial along with comic books, and games.

Currently his site is still under construction. He is also offering prelaunch specials on his discount cards while he is getting his site ready. He is hoping to open the virtual doors sometime here in the 3^rd or 4^th quarter of 2009. Until his site is up, you can reach him at his MySpace or follow him on Twitter if you are interested in his discount cards and his store in general.

MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/beyondthecharts
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/beyondthecharts

The Health Care debate is still going full steam in the news. Both sides are ratcheting up their propaganda campaign. This Video from CNN seemed to be fairly unbiased, and is worth looking at.

That is it for this installment of Midweek Mayhem. Feel free to post a comment or start a discussion in the forums on this or any other topic that tickles your fancy….

Restless Knight

Tags: Book Stores, Books, G3, Health Care Reform, IPhone, Mayhem, My Touch, T-Mobile